


The Prisoner

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 09:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: The real reason Hermione has never left Hiram; he has been allowing her to believe she is the killer.





	The Prisoner

Veronica asked her, right after Archie was arrested, why Hermione had stayed with Hiram, why she never broke away from him despite knowing the kind of man he was. They’d got into it during his trial too, when Hermione had admitted that she felt like his prisoner, not his puppet as Veronica, and probably half of Riverdale, viewed her as. Hermione had known that she could never tell Veronica that she had had her reasons, reasons that she had sworn never to speak of again…

It was meant to be her one chance to break away.

Hermione understood now that a big part of Hiram Lodge’s appeal in the first place had been the fact that her family didn’t like him. Since playing the game, since spending more time with Fred Andrews, she was beginning to realise just how controlling Hiram was, how she was losing all sense of herself since being with him. Playing the game, with her new found friends, gave Hermione a chance to realise that it didn’t have to be that way, that there were other choices out there for her. Then had come the day when she and her friends had run into Hiram and his friends also playing the game, and they had decided to combine the two groups, and Hermione had realised that her escape route from Hiram was now lost to her.

Sometimes she thought about trying to explain to the others. But Alice and Penelope had their own stuff to deal with, and most of the rest of them weren’t that close to Hiram and didn’t see what Hermione saw. As for Sierra, she’d just loved the idea of Hermione and Hiram being in a forbidden relationship given that her and Tom’s families would never have approved of theirs, so she would never have understood Hermione admitting that she now wanted to end hers. And now that Hiram had become a part of the group, that made it more difficult for Hermione to explain to her friends the look she sometimes saw in his eyes. Who would believe her anyway?

Hermione had known it was Hiram who had sent out the invitations to all of them for Ascension Night. He’d presented it to her as trying to arrange a surprise for them all, and had talked her into helping him with the preparations, told her not to tell Penelope or Daryl since they were the ones who had always liked to think they were in charge, given her the goblets and told her they had to be prepared for the Ascension. Years later, it was easier to claim that Daryl had planned the Ascension, they had agreed that that would be the version of events should the issue ever arise; who, after all, could disprove that given that he was no longer there to contradict that version of events? Penelope knew full well he hadn’t arranged it when she told her story to Betty Cooper; he’d complimented HER on arranging it and they had each been genuinely surprised that the other hadn’t done it.

Afterwards, he’d told her that she must have measured the quantities wrong, put a lot more fizzle rocks in the goblets than she’d been meant to. But it was going to be okay; the sheriff wasn’t looking for anyone else at the time, but if that changed, Hiram would make sure Hermione wasn’t the one to come under suspicion. All Hermione had to do was exactly as Hiram said; he would make sure no one looked at her for it. She’d get to live out her life as a regular teenager, finish her education, and when they left Riverdale High, they’d get out of there, go to New York or Los Angeles, somewhere they could get lost in the crowd, they’d be married. They’d never have to think about this again.

In the moment, Hermione would have accepted anything to make it all go away. Her breakup with Fred had seemed as much a relief to him as it was to her; he’d been pushing them all away ever since his father died, unable to deal with the fact that his father had died alone as he’d been with them. And this way, she still had a chance at a future, she could get her education, get the hell out of Riverdale. She’d cared for Hiram once, now he was offering her a chance of freedom; maybe in time her feelings for him would return.

Instead, she is coming to see the kind of man he really is. She knows he won’t do anything to hurt Veronica; yet she is trapped in this marriage to this man she doesn’t love, knowing that at any moment he can go public with his knowledge of her crime. She had thought that a relationship with Hiram was her way of avoiding prison; now Hermione knows she is in a prison of her own making.

It was never meant to happen that way.

Hiram had planned everything so carefully, from the day he’d followed Hermione, wondering why she was suddenly spending so much time with kids she’d never said two words to before, why she never wanted to spend any time with him any more. She never knew that he’d followed her one night, watched her through the school window as she and the others dressed up in those ridiculous costumes, as she let Fred Andrews get his vile greasy hands all over her.

From there it was a simple task to get himself drawn into the game. Daryl Doiley had been easy enough to get to go along with it – Gryphons and Gargoyles was exactly the type of shit that he would be interested in, and he was so keen to play it that he didn’t stop to question why someone like Hiram wanted to join in. Tom Keller had been roped in by Hiram telling him about Sierra and getting him to play along with the idea that it was a surprise and he hadn’t known that she was playing. As for Marty Mantle, he’d go along with anything Hiram suggested.

The scene was set. He’d delivered all the invitations to them all; everyone was bound to think that either Penelope or Daryl had been responsible. He’d slip them all the Fizzle Rocks, discreetly slipping his own into his pockets and then acting as high as the rest of them (if it went to plan, no one would be in any fit state to notice any difference anyway). And he’d lay out the goblets, with the intention that the first to Ascend, to find the goblets, would be the first to drink from them. When he talked to Hermione and she offered to help, it seemed perfect. So he let her put the goblets out herself, and then when she left the room, added the fizzle rocks himself. 

Hiram was pretty confident that Fred Andrews would be the first to ascend. He was the Radiant fucking Knight, for God’s sake. Made him want to vomit. The odds were practically stacked in his favour. And if Hiram had to take action to stop anyone else getting there, then he’d do it.

How was he to know the goddamn principal would take it into his head to pick that day to go back to the school after hours and drink from the goblet himself? When he went to check the site of the goblets, and saw their principal slumped over, Hiram didn’t have time to panic. It was lucky he’d built up the muscle during his wrestling, so he was able to get him into the supply closet without needing the help of anyone else. They didn’t call him Hiram “The Ram” Lodge for nothing.

Then Marty had come over, started asking what happened, and Penelope was looking freaked out, and there was Fred himself, being helped to his feet by FP. All Hiram could do in the moment was to play along with it, act as though he was as out of it as the rest of them, and then spend the next week acting dumb when people were wondering where the principal was.

Hermione had come to him, asking him about the quantities in the goblets, whether she could have somehow made a mistake. And Hiram knew the answer had come to him. Hermione already thought she may be responsible; all he had to do was play on that, allow her to continue believing that. As long as she thought he had proof of her guilt, Hermione would do anything Hiram wanted, and the idea of Hiram’s guilt would never be brought up.


End file.
